How social media are killing democracy and thus liberty

Comment published on New York Times online blog, in response to op-ed piece by David Brooks, “How we destroy lives today,” January 22, 2018:

In America today, liberty and democracy may need to be rethought.

Social media are a deformed public sphere, warped by the purposes of surveillant marketing, the crucial opinion/truth connection lost. Our legal system is based on such a connection: a representative of the interests of a person or organization pursues a client's interest against an opponent, the court itself seeking an impartial truth. This works because the defense or articulation of opinion and interest and the achievement of truth and justice are theoretically dependent on each other. The same thing is true in principle of our representative democracy and the role that traditional media outlets play in it.

With the breakdown of democracy has come a breakdown not only of our educational system, in both the formation of citizens by primary and secondary schools and the universities, where conservatives attack scholars for being partisan (wrong-sidedly), and corporatization and debt financing have turned students into consumers buying into a profession with its privileges.

The hard work of thinking gets replaced by claims to represent truth (as "fact") and then compel belief and assent in the curious manner of our culture of a friendly authoritarianism that, refusing all prejudices, respects everyone's need to feel important and comfortable. The media follows suit as the "space of reasons" dissolves into support groups for expressing yourself. Liberty without democracy kills both.